(a) The Legislature recognizes that the higher education goals set forth in section one-a, article one of this chapter are of utmost importance. The Legislature further recognizes that meeting the goals may require the appropriation of funds above the current operating budgets of the institutions.

Terms Used In West Virginia Code 18B-1A-4

  • Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
  • commission: means the commission created by §. See West Virginia Code 18B-1-2
  • Council: means the West Virginia Council for Community and Technical College Education created by §. See West Virginia Code 18B-1-2
  • Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.

(b) It is, therefore, the desire of the Legislature to increase funding annually for higher education at a rate not less than the annual percentage increase in the overall general revenue budget.

(c) If the commission or council, or both, determines that appropriations are insufficient to fund the requirements of the institutional compacts under its jurisdiction, the commission or council first shall consider extending the length of the compacts or otherwise modifying the compacts to allow the institutions to achieve the benchmarks in the compacts. If modifications to the institutional compacts are not sufficient to allow the institutions to meet their benchmarks, the commission or council, or both, shall recommend to the Legislature methods of making the higher education system more efficient. The methods may include, but are not limited to, the following:

(1) Administrative efficiencies;

(2) Consolidation of services;

(3) Elimination of programs;

(4) Consolidating institutions; and

(5) Closing institutions.